Svetlana Alliluyeva. Broken destiny. Documentary. According to the last will of Svetlana Alliluyeva, her tombstone will be written: "lana peters" - she also asked that no one be told about the place of her burial. What happened to Svetlana Alliluyeva
Fate did not spoil Svetlana Alliluyeva at all, despite the fact that she was the beloved daughter of Joseph Stalin. Even as a child, her father gave her expensive gifts, but life with the leader of the peoples was unbearable. Her mother committed suicide, unable to bear life with the dictator. Stalin, who was experiencing the death of his wife, tried to be a good father to his children, but Svetlana tried to do what she wanted, which is why Stalin was tough on her upbringing.
She dreamed of becoming a writer, improving her personal life and becoming just a happy wife and mother, but the formidable shadow of her father haunted her all her life. Alliluyeva got married, gave birth to heirs to her husbands, changed lovers, but she met her old age as a lonely man, whom even her own children rejected. Death overtook an 85-year-old woman when she lived in a nursing home in the US city of Richland County.
Difficult female fate
Even in her youth, the girl fell in love with the son of Lavrenty Beria - Sergo, who conquered her not only with her tall stature and beauty, but also with her upbringing and good education. The girl told her friend Martha, the granddaughter of Maxim Gorky, about who captured her heart. Sveta dreamed of marrying him and even shared her secrets with her father. Despite the fact that his father was not against this candidacy, the young man's father, Lavrenty Beria, wanted to protect him from such a party. But soon Sergo fell in love with Martha, whom he later married. After their wedding, Stalin's daughter stopped communicating with her friend and then for a long time could not forget the handsome man. She hoped to eventually win him back from her rival, but he only brushed her off in annoyance.
Alexey Kapler To forget the unhappy love, the 17-year-old girl accepted the courtship of the 40-year-old screenwriter Alexei Kapler. She was interested in this adult man, but there was a purely platonic relationship between them. Svetlana went with him to the theater and cinema with pleasure, walked the streets. When the father found out who his daughter was dating, he demanded that the screenwriter immediately leave the capital. The man refused, then, on the orders of Stalin, he was convicted and exiled to Vorkuta.
Grigory Morozov - the first husband of Svetlana Alliluyeva Alliluyeva dreamed of leaving her father's house as soon as possible, so she got married at the age of 19. Her chosen one was Grigory Morozov, a classmate of her brother Vasily. According to Svetlana herself, she did not have feelings for her husband, but she did not want to wait for love. The leader of the peoples, although he was dissatisfied with the alliance with the Jew, nevertheless gave the newlyweds an apartment. Her husband loved her and dreamed of replenishment in the family. In 1945, the son of Joseph was born, however, Alliluyeva did not want to give birth anymore from an unloved man, whom she soon divorced.
with second husband Yuri Zhdanov Soon, Stalin himself found her a fiancé, Yuri Zhdanov, the son of Politburo member Andrei Zhdanov. Svetlana was afraid to contradict her father, agreeing to marry a second time in 1949. A year later, she gave birth to a daughter, Catherine, but did not live with her husband, leaving the baby in his care. Svetlana tried to find her female happiness even after the death of her father: in 1957, Ivan Svanidze, the son of Alexander Svanidze, who was repressed by her father in 1941, became her husband. This marriage also quickly outlived itself: the woman was unfaithful to her husband, who soon found out about her adventures.
In her memoirs, she admitted that her beloved man was the Indian Brajesh Singh, 15 years older than her. The acquaintance of the lovers happened at a time when they were treated in the same hospital. The Indian communist taught Alliluyeva a lot, and only with him did she know what passion and love are. The lovers wanted to start a family, but Soviet officials did not allow her to legalize marriage with a foreigner. In 1966, the Indian died of cancer, and Svetlana managed to travel to the homeland of her beloved, where she scattered the ashes of her beloved over the river. The woman wanted to live in India for a while, but she was refused.
In the photo, Svetlana Alliluyeva with her five husband William Peters and their common daughter Olga Then she decided to emigrate to the United States. In 1970, Stalin's daughter married the architect William Peters, after which she became, according to documents, like Lana Peters. This short-term marriage did not bring her anything, except for the birth of another daughter, Olga, whom she gave birth to at the age of 44. Having filed a divorce from her fourth husband, Svetlana rode around the world and did her favorite thing - she wrote memoirs and books.
How was the life of her children
Alliluyeva's eldest son was adopted by her ex-husband, Yuri Zhdanov. Iosif Grigoryevich pursued a medical career, becoming a highly qualified cardiologist. He worked for many years in the capital's academy and wrote many scientific papers. In his personal life there were two families, one of which had a son, Ilya. Iosif Grigorievich died in 2008, but his mother never came to Russia to see her eldest son on his last journey.
In the photo, the eldest son of Svetlana Alliluyeva - Joseph Daughter Ekaterina settled in one of the villages of Kamchatka, where she is an employee of the Institute of Volcanology. After Alliluyeva left the girl, her mother-in-law was engaged in her upbringing. Ekaterina was educated and left Moscow forever. She got married and had a daughter. The husband drank a lot and died of cirrhosis of the liver. After his death, the woman became unsociable and now communicates only with her relatives. Upon learning of the death of Alliluyeva, she told reporters that she did not know this woman.
Stalin's daughter handed over her youngest daughter Olga to a boarding school when she was 11 years old. Now she sells souvenirs and has her own small shop. She did not succeed in starting a family, as she divorced her husband. Olga kept in touch with her mother during her lifetime and often talked to her on the phone.
In the personal life of the daughter of Joseph Stalin there were many novels, she got married several times, the first time it happened in her student years - then Grigory Morozov, who studied in the same class with Svetlana's brother Vasily, became her husband. The children of Svetlana Alliluyeva were born from different men, and the first of them, son Joseph, was born in her first marriage.
Svetlana Iosifovna lived with Grigory for about five years - her father did everything so that her daughter broke up with a person who was objectionable to him.
Soon after the divorce, Alliluyeva again went down the aisle - with Yuri Zhdanov, whom she saw almost only on the day of the wedding - Joseph Vissarionovich this time picked up her husband's daughter himself, but this marriage did not bring her happiness.
As soon as Svetlana Alliluyeva gave birth to her second child, daughter Katya, she immediately filed for divorce. Relations with her daughter Svetlana Iosifovna did not work out from childhood - when Katya was seven years old, Alliluyeva left the country, leaving her daughter to her ex-husband's parents, for which Katya could not forgive her mother.
Alliluyeva's third child was born in her fifth marriage, after emigrating to the States. The father of Olga's daughter was William Peters, an American architect, whom Svetlana Iosifovna married in 1970.
The relationship with the mother of the children of Svetlana Alliluyeva did not work out, they did not experience maternal love, so they tried to remember her as little as possible. After her flight from the country, Joseph and Katya erased her from their lives, and Catherine, in fact, completely abandoned her.
The son of Svetlana Alliluyeva, Joseph, after the divorce of his parents, was adopted by his mother's second husband, Yuri Zhdanov, who gave the child his last name. Later, Joseph returned his patronymic and took the surname Alliluyev. Iosif Grigorievich received a medical education, became a cardiologist. He worked all his life at the Moscow Medical Academy, published over one hundred and fifty scientific papers, defended his doctoral dissertation, and received the title of Honored Scientist.
His personal life did not develop immediately, he was married twice, in his first marriage his son Ilya was born. Iosif Grigorievich died in 2008, Svetlana Iosifovna, having learned about the death of her son, did not want to come to Moscow to see him on his last journey.
Iosif Grigorievich tried to avoid publicity, almost never gave interviews, and in one of them he spoke of his mother like this:
“My mother is an absolutely unbearable person in terms of character ... Somehow, angry, she threw a hammer at me, a boy. If I hadn’t dodged, I wouldn’t be talking to you now ... ”- recalled Iosif Alliluyev.
The eldest daughter of Svetlana Alliluyeva Ekaterina had even more negative memories of her mother, and this is probably why, when she was informed about the death of Svetlana Iosifovna, she said that she had nothing to do with this woman - Katya was not able to forgive her mother for the fact that when she, having left the country, left her daughter to the mercy of fate.
Ekaterina Yurievna became a geophysicist, and after graduating from the university she left as far as possible from the capital - to Kamchatka, to the village of Klyuchi, located at the foot of the Klyuchevskaya Sopka volcano. For almost forty years she lived in this village, without leaving anywhere, married one of the employees of the volcanological station, where she worked herself, gave birth to a daughter, Anna.
Her personal life was difficult - her husband left his first wife and children for her sake, and expected that marriage with Stalin's granddaughter would change his biography for the better, but this did not happen. Ekaterina Yuryevna cut off all ties with her relatives, and did not receive any help from them.
Catherine's husband drank, fell ill with cirrhosis of the liver, he began to have mental problems, and in the end he shot himself with a hunting rifle.
Alliluyeva's youngest daughter Olga also did not have warm feelings for her mother, who sent her to a boarding school at an early age.
Olga later changed her name to Chris and became Evans, taking her husband's surname. Now she is divorced, Olga has her own business in Portland - she owns a small gift shop.
Grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Svetlana Alliluyeva
The relationship with the children of the daughter of the leader of all peoples did not work out, therefore, the grandchildren of Svetlana Alliluyeva could not experience love and care from their grandmother. The granddaughter of Svetlana Iosifovna Anna Vsevolodovna Kozeva also has a strained relationship with her mother - Svetlana's daughter Ekaterina Zhdanova.
Anya was born in 1982 in Kamchatka, where her mother left Moscow in 1977. Now Anna Vsevolodovna lives in a military unit located near the village of Klyuchi, where her mother lives.
Anna got married, her husband is an ensign, and she herself works as an accountant. In the family of Anna Vsevolodovna, the daughter Victoria, the great-granddaughter of Svetlana Alliluyeva, is growing up.
Another descendant of Svetlana Iosifovna is the grandson of Ilya, the son of Joseph Grigoryevich Alliluyev, who was born in Svetlana's first marriage. Ilya is now fifty-three years old, he has a different surname - Voznesensky. When Svetlana Alliluyeva came to the Soviet Union, Ilya was fourteen years old, but he never met his grandmother.
His mother, the first wife of Joseph Alliluyev, says that they never maintained family ties with Svetlana Iosifovna. Despite the fact that Ilya's parents divorced, he communicated with his father, a wonderful cardiologist Iosif Alliluyev, until his death. Ilya Iosifovich himself is a famous Moscow architect.
Svetlana's parents Nadezhda Alliluyeva and Joseph Stalin.Alliluyeva arrived in India in December 1966, accompanying the ashes of her civil husband Brajesh Singh. She received consent to leave the country from the then chairman of the Council of Ministers, Kosygin. With the permission of the Politburo of the Communist Party, Alliluyeva could stay in the country for two months to say goodbye to her loved one and stay with his relatives.
According to the recollections of friends, the preparations for the trip were nervous and fast. For some reason, it turned out that Svetlana forgot to put photos of her children and mother in her suitcase. She shouted at her son's wife, who tried to bring a bag with an urn of ashes, did not say goodbye to her friends who came to see her off. The farewell to the children was also hurried and cold.
Here it is freedom! Svetlana liked India for its unusualness, tranquility, and she wanted to stay in this country. However, she was refused. Indira Gandhi was afraid of Alliluyeva's unpredictability, which could cause complications in international relations. Then on March 6, Svetlana asked permission to stay in India for another month. She was also denied this - she already exceeded the allowed period by half a month.
In her memoirs, Alliluyeva wrote that she was not going to leave the USSR. It is not known what happened, but on March 8, leaving the gifts for the children in the room, she left the hotel, got into a taxi and went to the US Embassy. Svetlana Alliluyeva made her choice - she decided to flee the USSR, leaving her children there.
Joseph and Ekaterina Alliluyev. The first time Svetlana got married in 1944. Her husband was Grigory Morozov, an old friend of brother Vasily. A year later, a boy was born to them, who was given the name Joseph, the surname Alliluyev. Stalin did not like his son-in-law, he had never seen him in three years of marriage, but he liked his grandson. Subsequently, Joseph became a famous cardiologist who achieved considerable success in medicine.
When his mother went abroad, Joseph was 22 years old. The first two years were especially difficult. Joseph worked in the clinic in two shifts, he came home, where correspondents of various printed publications were waiting for him. Osya was forced to communicate with them so that rumors would not spread around the country that Stalin's grandson had been taken somewhere. Gradually, Joseph's life got back on track, unlike his sister, for whom the mother's act was a strong blow.
Joseph Stalin's grandson Joseph Alliluyev In a letter to his mother, Joseph wrote that by her act she separated herself from her children. Now they will live according to their own understanding, receiving advice and real help from other people. In fact, he abandoned his mother in his own name and the name of his sister. Many Soviet people were absolutely not worried about the flight of Stalin's daughter abroad, they could not forgive her abandoned children and countless scandalous novels abroad. But in 1983, they started talking about family reunification.
Svetlana and her daughter from her last marriage, Olga, began to call Osya back, more or less friendly communication was established. In 1984, the mother and daughter came to the Soviet Union, intending to stay in the country forever. Joseph saw a man who lived under different circumstances, in another country, and became a complete stranger to him. Svetlana did not like his wife, constant employment (Osya was working on his dissertation), unwillingness to communicate with her. When his mother left for Georgia, and then forever abroad, Joseph, according to him, experienced great relief.
Ekaterina Zhdanova did not forgive her mother. The second time Svetlana married in 1949 to Yuri Zhdanov. A year later, they had a girl, who was named Katya. According to Joseph, the mother loved her daughter more, while the process of raising her son consisted in "constant scuffles." The mother's escape was an unexpected and bitter betrayal for Katya. After graduating from Moscow State University with a degree in geophysics, a few years later she left for Kamchatka in the village of Klyuchi. Katya was sociable, lively, she sang and played the guitar. Soon she got married, leaving her last name in marriage, gave birth to a daughter, Anya. After the suicide of her husband, who abused alcohol, Catherine changed, became unsociable, began to withdraw into herself, recognizing only the company of dogs.
House of unbending Ekaterina Zhdanova. Of the relatives, she communicated only with her father. Giving up her rights to an apartment in the capital, she lived all her life in a small wooden house without a TV, furnished with old furniture. She worked at the station of the Institute of Volcanology. When Alliluyeva again tried to settle down in her homeland, Katya refused to meet with her mother. She limited herself to a short note in which she wrote that she would never forgive. Alliluyeva passed letters to her daughter with American scientists assigned to the station, but she did not answer. In response to a message about the death of Svetlana, Stalin's granddaughter said that it was a mistake, that she was Zhdanova, and Alliluyeva was not her mother.
Stalin's family Svetlana Alliluyeva never disclosed to anyone the reasons for her departure, which served as the basis for breaking off relations with children. She justified her act by saying that her son and daughter were already at an age when they could take care of themselves. She forgot that at that time such an escape was considered a betrayal of the Motherland, and the attitude towards relatives of a defector was difficult. What they had to endure in connection with the flight of their mother, only they knew. And they had their own reasons for never forgiving their mother.
Stalin had two sons, Yakov (from his first wife) and Vasily, and a daughter, Svetlana. Everyone's fate is tragic.
Jacob was captured by the Germans and died there. The father looked at the younger ones - Vasily and Svetlana with regret. Neither son nor daughter could awaken fatherly love in him. Perhaps Stalin did not have these feelings at all. Vasily after his death went to prison and died a young man. Svetlana fled the country.
Once Svetlana Stalin was envied by millions. People in their dreams imagined her fantastically happy life. How far from reality they were!
Svetlana was only six years old when her mother, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, shot herself. But Svetlana will find out about what really happened to her mother many years later. She wrote about her father: "Mom's death hit him terribly, devastated him, took away his faith in people and friends ... And he became hardened." After the fatal shot in the Kremlin, Svetlana herself found herself completely alone. The daughter of the leader was deprived of friends and girlfriends, the joys of communicating with people.
Svetlana's relationship with her father was very difficult. As a child, she was his favorite. Then something happened: either he was disappointed in the girl, or those around him were completely disgusted with him, but the daughter began to annoy him.
She suffered and subconsciously searched for a man who would not only give her freedom, but would also be to some extent similar to her father. Isn't that why all Svetlana's marriages turned out to be unsuccessful and quickly broke up? None of her men brought her true happiness. But her men also had a hard time. The man she fell in love with first, spent ten years in places not so remote. A harsh price for one love date.
With the famous screenwriter Alexei Yakovlevich Kapler, whom the older generation still remembers as a wonderful host of the popular TV program "Kinopanorama", she was introduced by her brother Vasily. Alexei Yakovlevich was a well-known screenwriter, according to his scripts, the popular films "Lenin in October", "Lenin in the eighteenth year", "Kotovsky" were staged.
It was the November holidays. Kapler and Svetlana danced the then fashionable foxtrot. She wanted so badly to talk to someone frankly. And in front of her was an adult and intelligent person, ready to listen to her. There was a difference of twenty-two years between them. Svetlana was still at school. Kapler came to her school, stood in the entrance of a neighboring house. I was afraid to approach. Employees of the first department of the NKVD, who were in charge of the protection of the leaders of the party and government, relentlessly followed the leader's daughter.
Then Kapler flew to Stalingrad. Once in Pravda, Svetlana Stalina read an article by a military correspondent Kapler, written in the form of a letter from the front to the woman she loved. She immediately realized that it was a letter addressed to her. The article ended with the words: "Now it is probably snowing in Moscow. From your window you can see the battlements of the Kremlin..."
Svetlana did not know that all her telephone conversations were tapped and recorded. The head of the Stalinist guard, General Vlasik, ordered Kapler to be warned that it would be better for him to go away from Moscow. But he fell head over heels in love and did not heed the warning.
On March 3, 1943, Alexei Kapler, laureate of the Stalin Prize of the first degree, holder of the Order of Lenin, was arrested. He was accused of "maintaining close contact with foreigners suspected of espionage." It was about foreign cultural figures who came to the Soviet Union. Meetings with them were held by decision of the Central Committee and under the supervision of the Chekists.
On November 25, 1943, a special meeting decided: "Kapler A.Ya. for anti-Soviet agitation to be imprisoned in a labor camp for a period of five years." He was sent to the North, to Vorkuta. He served five years and arrived in Moscow in 1948. It was a mistake. Probably, the Chekists were afraid that he would meet the leader's daughter again. He was arrested and given another five years in the camps
The heavy, despotic character of Stalin did not allow him to come to terms with the fact that his daughter was already an adult and had the right to her own life, to love. But Svetlana's desire to break free from the Kremlin only intensified. As soon as she was eighteen years old, she married her brother's classmate, Grigory Morozov. She so wanted to find some kind of close person, at least someone who would love her and think about her.
The father was dissatisfied with his son-in-law, a Jew, but muttered:
Damn you, do what you want...
He demanded that she never come to him with her husband. Only when she divorced did Stalin invite her to relax together in the summer. When Svetlana Stalin and Grigory Iosifovich Morozov separated, he was forbidden to see his son. When Svetlana unexpectedly returned to the Soviet Union in the 1980s, Morozov helped her. Yevgeny Maksimovich Primakov, who was friends with Morozov, believes that Svetlana was counting on the resumption of relations with her ex-husband. But it was already too late...
After Morozov, she married the son of a member of the Politburo Andrei Alexandrovich Zhdanov, a promising party worker, Yuri Zhdanov.
“Our marriage with Svetlana,” Zhdanov said much later, “took place in April 1949. In those days, our family and Svetlana lived in the conditions of the Kremlin retreat. Svetlana was at my father’s funeral. Then we began to meet at our apartment.
I am at work from morning to evening, my mother is alone in the Kremlin prison. Svetlana shared her loneliness. Our meetings became more frequent, and the matter ended in marriage. I planted Svetlana for writing out bibliographic cards from Marx, Lenin, Pavlov for my work. She did everything very carefully, some of the cards I keep to this day. But, apparently, he made a psychological mistake: Svetlana strove for her own literary work, strove for self-expression. I overlooked this, which was the reason for the loss of contact, and then the divorce.
Once in the family of the main party ideologist Zhdanov, Svetlana was shocked by the abundance of chests stuffed with "good", and in general a combination of ostentatious, sanctimonious "party spirit" with terry philistinism. For some reason, it is customary to admire the asceticism of the highest Soviet officials. This is an illusion, it's just that their life went on behind high fences, the Chekists reliably protected the "modest life" of the authorities from prying eyes.
In the autumn of 1952, the dynastic marriage quickly fell apart.
Svetlana Alliluyeva wrote to her father:
“As for Yuri Andreevich Zhdanov, we decided to part with him. This was a completely natural conclusion, after we had been each other neither husband nor wife for almost half a year, but who knows who, after he quite clearly proved to me - not in words, but in reality - that I was not at all dear to him and did not need me, even after he repeated to me a second time that I should leave him a daughter.
No, I’ve had enough of this dried-up professor, a heartless “erudite”, let him dig himself headlong into his books, but he doesn’t need a family and a wife at all, they are completely replaced by numerous relatives.
In a word, I don’t regret at all that we parted, but I’m only sorry that a lot of good feelings were wasted on him, on this icy wall!
And Svetlana could not tell her father personally about such important events in her life, because the leader fenced himself off from everything and did not want to see her ...
After the 20th Congress, Svetlana met with her distant relative Ivan Svanidze, who had returned from exile. At birth, he was named Jonrid in honor of the American journalist who wrote the famous book about the October Revolution - "Ten Days That Shook the World." Svanidze lost his parents at the age of eleven - his father was shot, and his mother was sent into exile, where she died. Svanidze and Alliluyeva agreed. But two unfortunate and tormented souls could not give peace and comfort to each other.
After the death of her father, the personal life of Svetlana Alliluyeva remained a subject of constant concern to the highest authorities. Especially from the moment she met a foreigner. The Indian communist Raji Bridge Singh lived in Moscow and worked as a translator at the Foreign Literature Publishing House. Their romance proceeded under the vigilant attention of operatives of the 7th KGB Directorate.
They did not dare to interfere with Svetlana, knowing her character. But they followed closely. Just like her brother, Vasily Stalin, was followed until his death in March 1962. Most feared were the contacts of Stalin's children with foreigners. And then an affair with a citizen of India!
The security officers feared in vain that someone was trying to recruit Svetlana Alliluyeva. Everything that she did in her life, she did, obeying her own feelings and desires. In general, she was a very independent person and, in spite of everything, she married an Indian. But again, she was out of luck. Her fourth husband - he was much older than her - turned out to be a sick man. And he died in her arms. He bequeathed to bury him at home. Svetlana asked permission to fulfill his last will.
The Politburo really did not want to let her go abroad, as if they had a premonition of something! But her late husband was a communist, India is more than a friendly country, and there was no reason to refuse. Svetlana was reluctantly released, however, accompanied by two Chekists. But they didn't follow.
On March 7, 1967, when Moscow was preparing to adequately celebrate the day of international women's solidarity, Stalin's daughter Svetlana Iosifovna Alliluyeva came to the American embassy in Delhi and asked for political asylum. She was taken to Italy, then to Switzerland, and from there she was taken to the United States.
Having fled to the West, Svetlana Alliluyeva sat down at the book of memoirs "Twenty Letters to a Friend". She painted a portrait of her father, who saw enemies everywhere: "It was already a pathology, it was a persecution mania from devastation, from loneliness ... He was extremely fierce against the whole world."
Svetlana wrote not so much about her criminal father, but about her worthless, stupid, double, useless and hopeless life, full of the most severe losses and the bitterest disappointments and losses. Proximity to power can give a person comfort, honors, ostentatious respect, but does not make a person happy. In the eighties, she returned to the USSR, but could not settle here and left her homeland again - this time forever.
March 6, 1967 daughter Joseph Stalin Svetlana Alliluyeva decided not to return to the Soviet Union.
“Kalina-raspberry, Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, ran away, what a family of figs!”, This is how folk art responded to the event that put the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee and other governing bodies of the Soviet Union on the ears.
The beloved daughter of Joseph Stalin, whom the foreign media referred to as the “Red Princess”, became a “defector”.
Svetlana Iosifovna gave a lot of trouble even to dad. The stormy temperament of her daughter resulted in a series of novels that Svetlana began at a minor age. From the choice of his daughter, Stalin often became furious, which fell on the heads of unlucky boyfriends. For the director Alexey Kapler relationship with the girl turned into a long stay in the Gulag.
In 1944 Svetlana married Grigory Morozov, her brother's classmate, Vasily Stalin. A son was born in the marriage, who was named Joseph, but the relationship did not last long. In 1949, Stalin's daughter married a second time - this time for the son of an ally of the leader Yuri Zhdanov. The marriage lasted three years and in it Svetlana had a second child - a daughter Ekaterina.
Farewell ceremony for Joseph Stalin. Svetlana Alliluyeva is in the center. Photo: RIA Novosti
under the wing of the state
After the death of her father, Svetlana found herself under the scrutiny of the new leaders of the state. True, unlike her brother Vasily, she was not put away either in prison or in a psychiatric hospital. She worked at the Institute of World Literature, in the sector for the study of Soviet literature.
Svetlana, now bearing the name Alliluyeva, continued to try to arrange her personal life. The Indian aristocrat and communist became the next chosen one of the lady Raja Bradesh Singh.
The Soviet authorities were rather wary of marriages with foreigners. But, firstly, Alliluyeva did not officially marry Singh, secondly, India was considered a friendly state, and thirdly, the leaders of the countries believed that it would be better for Stalin's daughter to deal with men than publicly say something superfluous.
According to the memoirs of the then head of the KGB of the USSR Vladimir Semichastny, Alliluyeva lived very well by those standards - a good salary, payments to herself and her children. Stalin's daughter lived in a "house on the embankment", a summer house and a car were assigned to her. In general, Svetlana Iosifovna could support not only herself and her children, but also her common-law husband, who transferred all his earnings to relatives in India.
Guarantee of Comrade Kosygin
In the autumn of 1966, Raja Bradesh Singh died after a serious illness, and Svetlana Alliluyeva wrote a letter Leonid Brezhnev with a request to allow her to travel to "her husband's homeland to scatter his ashes over the sacred waters of the Ganges."
The Politburo thought about how to act. The Soviet leaders knew that Alliluyeva had finished work on the book Twenty Letters to a Friend. The content of this manuscript was well known to them. In general, they didn’t see anything too seditious in her - Svetlana criticized her father for the repressions, which was not at odds with the official course of the party. But, at the same time, they were not going to allow the publication of memoirs in the USSR, and they were not eager for the book to be published in the West.
They decided that Alliluyeva could be released, instructing the KGB to prevent the export of the manuscript by Stalin's daughter.
Mikhail Semichastny claimed that Svetlana did not take her out, but nevertheless managed to somehow transfer her abroad.
The decisive factor in allowing Alliluyeva to leave was the personal guarantee of the head of the Soviet government Alexey Kosygin who had friendly relations with Stalin's daughter.
Confidence was added by the fact that Svetlana's son Joseph was going to get married and the date of the celebration was set. Members of the Politburo logically reasoned that it was unlikely that the mother would miss her son's wedding.
KGB warns
Ambassador of the USSR in India Ivan Benediktov was instructed to provide all possible assistance to Svetlana.
In December 1966, Svetlana Alliluyeva arrived in India, where Ambassador Benediktov placed her in a separate apartment on the territory of the village of employees of the Soviet diplomatic mission.
The ashes over the waters of the Ganges were scattered, but Svetlana Iosifovna was not in too much of a hurry to return to her homeland. With permission to stay for seven days, Alliluyeva spent a month in India. The son called his mother from Moscow, asking when Svetlana would return. She begged Joseph to postpone the wedding.
Alliluyeva herself persuaded Ambassador Benediktov to resolve the issue of extending his stay in India for another month. The diplomat agreed, and Svetlana was indeed given the go-ahead. At the same time, Stalin's daughter left for her late husband's native village and disappeared from the field of view of her compatriots for a month.
Finally, in early March, it was decided that Alliluyev should be returned. Moreover, Joseph was losing patience, and his calls to his mother, who returned to Delhi, were extremely nervous.
And Svetlana Iosifovna asked the ambassador to once again extend her stay in India. But this time, Ivan Benediktov handed Alliluyeva a passport and a plane ticket to Moscow on March 8.
Stalin's daughter began to collect things and buy gifts, but the head of the Soviet intelligence station in Delhi was wary - there were certain oddities in her behavior. In a restaurant, a scout under the guise of a foreigner managed to talk to Svetlana, who leaned heavily on alcohol. She, blaspheming the Soviet leadership, including Kosygin, who vouched for her, let it slip that she wanted to stay abroad, and already had “some agreements” for this.
The conversation was reported to Ambassador Benediktov, but he did not believe it. Just in case, Svetlana was assigned to observe a special services officer who worked at the embassy. Alliluyeva had to be watched especially carefully during her traditional evening walks. The fact is that Svetlana Iosifovna was walking past the territory of the US Embassy.
Gate to the "free world"
Despite these precautions, Svetlana Alliluyeva fled. Right in front of her escort on the evening of March 6, 1967, she “dived” into the territory of the US Embassy through the gate, which was usually closed.
On the same night, the Americans took the woman to the airport and she flew to Switzerland, where she asked for political asylum. However, she was refused first in Switzerland and then in Italy, and in transit through the FRG she arrived in the United States, where she was granted asylum.
“Hello everyone! Very happy to be here! It’s just wonderful!” Stalin’s daughter greeted journalists at Kennedy Airport.
And in the USSR at that time there was a "debriefing". Kosygin was a "high-flying bird", so they preferred to forget about his guarantee. The main "scapegoat" was Ambassador Benediktov, who was recalled from India, transferred to work in Yugoslavia, relations with which at that time were very difficult.
The escape of Alliluyeva became one of the arguments for the removal in May 1967 of the head of the KGB, Vladimir Semichastny. In addition, more than a dozen Soviet officials of a lower rank were punished.
Already from abroad, Svetlana called her son, trying to explain the motives for her act. Joseph refused to understand his mother, considering her act a betrayal. He also did not allow Svetlana to talk to her sister.
New York - Moscow - New York
On her memoirs, Alliluyeva managed to make a decent capital, and in 1970 she married an American architect William Peters. She took the name Lana Peters gave birth to a daughter, who was named Olga, and the birth of Stalin's granddaughter in the United States became a new sensation for the American press.
But gradually interest in it in the United States began to fade. The expected hunt for a fugitive by the KGB did not follow - the new head of the Committee Yuri Andropov decided that Alliluyeva was of no interest.
Lana's new marriage lasted only a couple of years, as the architect Peters began to complain that "Lana woke up dictatorial traits, the same as her father."
Having lived for a decade with her daughter in the USA, in 1982 Svetlana moved to the UK, and in November 1984 she appeared ... in the Soviet Union.
This was not an operation of the special services - Stalin's daughter was homesick for her homeland. At a press conference, she scolded the West and accused the American intelligence services: “All these years I have been a real toy in the hands of the CIA!”
She was settled in Tbilisi, they created all the conditions for her, but two years later, already under Mikhail Gorbachev, she again asked for permission to travel to the United States. She received it quickly enough - everyone was already tired of the "turns" of Svetlana Iosifovna. The children, abandoned by her in the USSR, could not forgive her.
Olga Pieters changed her name to Chris Evans and currently lives in Portland. Whether she, unlike her brother and sister, was close to her mother is known only to herself. For the last two decades of her life, Svetlana Alliluyeva lived almost as a hermit, now in the USA, now in the UK, rarely giving interviews. She died in November 2011 at a nursing home in the American city of Richland, Wisconsin.